Tremendous Hope

“So Jesus was saying to those Jews who believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free”. From John 8:31 John 3:16 tells us that “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life”. It is in the act of believing – of placing complete trust in Jesus Christ for our salvation that we are what the Bible calls, “saved.” We are saved from our sins by receiving the forgiveness that the sinless Christ offered us when He died on the cross, willingly taking on the sins of the world, and dying in our place. Unless we are on earth when Jesus Christ returns, we will all experience physical death. But believers in Jesus Christ have the blessed hope of the resurrection. We do not grieve the death of another believer in the same way the rest of the world grieves death, for we have the sure hope of seeing this loved one again. That hope makes all the difference in the world! Although we in North America tend not to focus on heaven so much, heaven is a very real place. But, what about the here and now? Does this one time act of placing trust in Christ make for an exciting faith-filled existence while we reside on planet earth? Not necessarily. There is a difference in being eternally saved and of being a disciple – a true follower - of Jesus Christ. And although a person in either category will go to heaven one day – the person who is saved, but continues to live like everyone else in their society (the Bible calls this being pushed into the worlds mould), will live a very different and much less satisfying life (to put it very mildly) than the person who day-by-day chooses to run after God and be Christ’s disciple. Does being a disciple mean that there will not be problems in life? No, definetly no. The difference is when we face those problems we not only have the assurance that Christ cares for us in all circumstances and will help us to get through our situation, still firmly rooted in His love and that He does have purpose and meaning in and thorugh our lives. That gives us tremendous hope.